Why so Swift to judge Taylor?

Taylor Swift has a new album out today. There'll be plenty of publicity surrounding it, as there is with any big star, but why is it different for her?

For some reason, people seem to be queuing up to accuse her of ditching her country roots and - more juicily for the gossip mags and red tops - engaging in some sort of musical kiss and tell on her ex-boyfriends.

I haven't heard Taylor's latest effort yet but my girlfriend is a fan and I expect it'll be a similar blend of super catchy pop that she managed with Red.

For some reason, people want to be snobby about such music. I can't be doing with reviewers who fail to praise someone simply because they don't think it's cool or that it doesn't reference an obscure B side from the 1970s. An awful lot of music reviewers seem to have disappeared up their own B sides. A lot of the time you finish a review still none the wiser as to whether they thought it was any good or not.

So, yes, she's a little less country now but still has the odd nod to her roots. There's a blurred line (not a Thicke one) in the UK between country and pop anyway with many of the boyband ballads inflicted on our eardrums in the 90s having their roots in the Stetson-wearing Nashville set.

But what should she do? Is she not allowed to mature and develop her sound? Should she be forever bound by singing songs about 'losing her man, her dawg but still having a geetar and a ticket to the Grand Ol Opry'?

More serious is the suggestion that she's wrong to sing about her love life because it appears to be largely based on sexist nonsense.

She recently, rightly, pointed to the fact that artists such as Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars aren't pulled up for apparently 'spilling the beans' through the medium of song.

Sadly we still seem to be in the dark ages whereby a 'bloke' can either boast about his 'conquests' or appear 'cute' by talking of heartbreak while a woman faces being seen as 'bitter' and not 'lady-like' for similar outbursts.

Of course Taylor Swift should write about what matters to her. We should welcome young artists who write their own material that means something to them and, by now, we ought to be over these silly gender stereotypes. Most of the people criticising her haven't got the talent to do what she does. It's not easy to write a successful pop song, if it was we'd all be at it.

I feel sorry for Taylor. She seems nice enough and her music is good fun. She proved in her recent Shake It Off video that she doesn't take herself seriously. Maybe it's about time some of her critics followed suit.